Flixster buys Rotten Tomatoes

Social networking site nabs IGN unit

Flixster, a social networking website for movie fans, has acquired film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes from News Corp.-owned IGN Entertainment.

Full financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but IGN has been looking to focus more of its development dollars on its videogame and male lifestyle websites. It recently launched Game On, a videogames-dedicated portal on MSN. Sale also comes as News Corp.’s digital division has been overhauling MySpace and its stable of sites.

This enables IGN to focus on serving the male 18-34 audience especially videogamers and the advertisers looking to reach them,” said Roy Bahat, president of IGN Entertainment.

IGN will receive a minority equity stake in Flixster as part of the acquisition, while Bahat will join Flixster’s board of directors as an observer.

Combined, Flixster and Rotten Tomatoes will reach an estimated 30 million visitors each month on their own sites, social networking destinations and mobile devices like the iPhone and BlackBerry. Their database will consist of 250,000 movies, 2.3 billion user reviews, half a million critics’ reviews and more than 20,000 trailers and videos.